WHAT NOW (WITH NO QUESTION MARK)

Martha Coakley lost the US Senate race in Massachusetts tonight, and suddenly every one sees a sea change. Even an "epic" one, according to the news item I linked to.

And I say: Eh.

There are probably a couple thousand people right now -- most of them not in Massachusetts, but rather in the White House or on K Street -- thinking about their paychecks and wringing their hands and wondering "what now?" They are worthless.

Take the question mark away and think: "What now!"

Now maybe the Obama administration and congressional leadership will "man up" (sorry, females! Believe me; if we could change places...) and fight the political ground war they have needed to fight for the past 14 months. Yes, 14 months; Bush was still in the White House for two months while the Democrats were starting the diddling and compromising and hedging that would mark the first year of this administration and lead us to today.

Now maybe Obama, Reid and Pelosi will have an incentive to propose a legislatve package -- and I'm not just talking health care here -- that will look more like a platform than ideas written and re-written on a dry-erase board. Note to the leadership: it's hard to support your package if, every other minute (or every other senator... or representative...), you've changed what's inside the box.

Now maybe Obama -- and this one is exclusively the President's prerogative -- will get out in public to sell his agenda. You want an example? In 1981, a seriously underestimated Ronald Reagan bypassed Tip O'Neill and the Washington establishment and sold his agenda direcrtly to the public. No comment about the net result; just about the salesmanship.

We have a president who can command the networks pretty much whenever he wants, and what do we get? Nothing.

On a more "micro" scale, he can do things like, oh, speak out against anti-LGBT discrimination in California and Maine, or support Martha Coakley before the last hour, and... he does nothing?

Listen, I do not want to be president of the United Stated of America. I've got enough on my plate without having to worry about Bradykins starting world wars. But if you want to look for a reason Massachusetts (or "Massachusettes," as it was spelled in one Coakley commercial, which was another problem..) went to the dark side, don't only flip out over Scott Brown or the RNC or the Tea-Baggers.

This problem starts at home -- home being 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue -- and it starts with a determined reluctance to chart and advocate for a vision.

Incoming senator Scott Brown (R-MA) is not your problem. Neither were the California and Maine votes. They are all the results of problems of your own making. Our own making, for offering blind support, but getting nothing in return except platitudes.

Whoever told the Washington elite they were above politics deserves some sort of prize for fiction.

Now get the fuck to work! The rest of us who aren't employed by the administration or congress are waiting.